Haunted Past
by greeneyedconstellations
Summary: Prentiss is forced to flirt with serial killer Karl Arnold when she and Hotch visit him in prison (5x08) and it reminds her all too well of her time undercover with Ian Doyle.


**a/n: This was sparked by the following dialogue between Prentiss and Hotch from Season 5, Episode 8 "Outfoxed," when she had to flirt with serial killer Karl Arnold in prison to help them catch the unsub.**

 _ **"I encouraged him. I flirted with him. Made it personal. Getting intimate with a killer is so different."**_

" _ **It's what we do."**_

 _ **"Yeah, but, there's no fixing how I feel right now is there?"**_

 _ **"No. But it helped the case, and you did what you had to."**_

 **This is rated T for language and some brief mentions of sex. Nothing graphic by any means, but sex all the same.**

* * *

Given the horror of the last twenty-four hours, the door to her apartment barely swings shut behind her before Emily has poured her first of many glasses of wine that night.

Hotch's godforsaken wife was murdered by that scum of the earth Foyet, and Emily can't erase the sight of Haley – dead, her clothing tinged crimson – on Hotch's bedroom floor.

She props open the glass door to the balcony that overlooks Pennsylvania Avenue and plops her tired, aching body unceremoniously on the sole wicker chair adorning the patio.

It isn't like she hasn't seen a dead body before – hell, she's seen more than anyone in their lifetime rightfully should. And it isn't like she doesn't have impeccable compartmentalization skills. It's precisely those skills that allow her to excel so readily at her job. Nevertheless, this case was far from regular.

She takes a sip of wine and sighs contentedly. The traffic on the streets below lulls her, allows her easier access to the feelings she usually keeps behind lock and key.

 _Mmmm._

This Cabernet is nectar from the gods.

If she's being honest with herself – and she is, something she can only attribute to the weight of the last day - it isn't only Hotch's loss that is nagging at Emily, itching at the base of her skull, bringing tired fingers to bloodied, torn cuticles.

It's that damn role she had to play with Karl Arnold earlier that day. She knows its part of the territory, that playing mind games to connect with serial killers is commonplace. Emily knows they could not have cracked the case wide open without her, and yet, when she flashes back to those pictures of little Lucy Downey – dead, blue hued, in a bathing suit, splayed out in front of Karl Arnold, she can't help but shiver.

She puts her glass down and stands up suddenly. She feels the slightest prick of tears behind tired eyes. Resting her elbows on the balcony railing, she seeks the support of the cool wrought iron to keep her upright.

Flirting with Karl Arnold and –

 _getting intimate with a killer is so different_

allowing him to flirt back catapults Emily right back to a certain blue eyed Irishman with a penchant for attractive international arms dealers, because that is exactly what she did with him:

She encouraged him. She flirted with him. She made it personal. And – she got intimate with him.

My god, did she get intimate.

The first time they slept together, Emily – _Lauren_ – almost lost her wit. Prentiss had done deep undercover missions of this magnitude twice before: once, she played a Russian weapons dealer who specialized in weapons of mass destruction to infiltrate a Chechen terrorist cell located just south of the Afghani border. The second time, she embodied a French diplomat turned traitor, buried deep in a child trafficking ring. Neither times had she been commissioned to sleep with the target. But it wasn't as if she had been commissioned exactly to sleep with Doyle, either…it just happened.

Blame it on the fucking job.

Ian Doyle was unnervingly different than her first two targets.

That first time came six weeks after they first met. She had just secured the sale of a top-notch surface to air missile for Doyle and his executives; he was feeling particularly cheery with the missile in his possession, and thanks to both her extensive training and inherent intuition, she knew she needed to use his mood to her advantage.

When she kissed him in the backseat of that second car, his cronies patrolling the perimeter with their burdensome assault rifles, his body responded hungrily. There were tongues dueling together and rough hands nipping at her shirt and him muttering something about, "It's about time, darling."

Emily remembers the feel of his calloused hands on her face; the sharp intake of chilly air grounds her, reminds her she is home, in D.C, and that he is rightfully rotting in some prison in North Korea.

They fucked in that very same car that day. Emily felt it then and still remembers the disturbing feeling now: how distinctly _good_ it felt when it should have felt so wrong.

The sheer physicality of being with a man: sweaty limbs tangled together, gentle moans escaping parched lips, hands clutched possessively around her hips as she moved above him made her body thrum with desire and her mind battle internally between right and wrong.

Doyle's lovemaking matched his personality: brusque, rough, unrelenting, and Lauren Reynolds grew to love it. Not _him_ , it. The sex.

She has always been certain of the difference.

She hates that her interactions with a man – if she can even call him that - like Karl Arnold are what bring her back to this dreary place after all this time, but as she stands on her balcony in the crisp November air, Prentiss feels as though Lauren Reynolds is here – within her – embodying her- and it makes her ill.

In one quick swoop, Emily downs the rest of the ruby liquid from the glass.

 _Lauren Reynolds is dead. Ian Doyle is gone and Lauren Reynolds is dead._

She reminds herself of this time and time again.


End file.
